This invention relates to an apparatus for programming and controlling the position of the handle of a ball-hitting instrument or "bat" and the guidance of the instrument in ball games.
Such instruments are in particular, a club, lofter or putter for playing golf, a stick for playing hockey, a bat or willow for playing cricket or a racket for playing badminton or, in particular, tennis.
In ball games which require an instrument for hitting the ball, the seizing position of the player's hand on the bat handle and the guidance of the bat when carrying out the necessary motions, leading to and including the hitting movement or strike by the player's arm, is of paramount importance if an unobjectionable dynamics and rhythmics of all the phases of the bat movements are to be obtained.
Non-rhythmic motional sequences require a greatly increased motive force and excessive consumption of energy, and the rate of errors made by the player increases more than would be proportional with the increase of power input. For instance if the transition from the "swing-out" to a striking or hitting motion is not carried out dynamically, much more energy is used up by the player than when he plays correctly, and he will become tired much sooner in a ball game and tend to lose it.
In the German Offenlegungsschrift 35 25 843 there is described a control apparatus which is intended to control certain phases of forehand and backhand play, slicing and service and other motions particularly connected with playing tennis.
However, the entire sequence of phases is not controlled by this device but only certain phases of a complete rhythmic play. Moreover, this known device suffers from several drawbacks. A most serious drawback of the known device is to be seen in that the response of signal-emitting electronic units is too slow so that the signals arrive too late to be processed timely. Another serious drawback resides in the necessity for the player to operate switches in the middle of a play in order to distinguish between forehand and backhand moves, as the known device cannot automatically distinguish between them. Yet another serious drawback resides in the fact that the limits that must be observed by a player in order to obtain a "good signal" toward the end of a move, are so narrow that a player must be practically perfect, so that a trainee never achieves a "good" result except incidentally.
A further drawback is to be seen in the rattling noise produced continuously by certain switch means in the known device, and a further one in the large number of switches required for an incomplete control of motions. In this connection another drawback resides in the fact that switch means that would be required to switch from a normal forehand or backhand play to slicing moves could not be technically realized.